Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/179

1864.] has set in the heart of man at his birth, that he might ever bear something about him to remind him of a mother's tenderness and a father's pride.

If that be the best government wherein all the moral and intellectual faculties of the governed receive their fullest development, and the responsibility of the sovereign is made so immediate that he can neither lose sight of it nor escape from its obligations, that surely must be the worst in which one man thinks and judges for all, and, by an unnatural union of spiritual and temporal attributes, is raised above all human responsibility,—a theocracy, with man to interpret the will of God, and to enforce his own interpretations.

beautiful it was, that one bright day In the long week of rain! Though all its splendor could not chase away The omnipresent pain.  The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, And the great elms o'erhead Dark shadows wove on their aërial looms, Shot through with golden thread.  Across the meadows, by the gray old manse, The historic river flowed:— I was as one who wanders in a trance, Unconscious of his road.  The faces of familiar friends seemed strange;<br/ > Their voices I could hear,<br/ > And yet the words they uttered seemed to change<br/ > Their meaning to the ear.<br/ > <br/ > For the one face I looked for was not there,<br/ > The one low voice was mute;<br/ > Only an unseen presence filled the air,<br/ > And baffled my pursuit.<br/ > <br/ > Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream<br/ > Dimly my thought defines;<br/ > I only see—a dream within a dream—<br/ > The hill-top hearsed with pines.<br/ > <br/ > I only hear above his place of rest<br/ > Their tender undertone,<br/ > The infinite longings of a troubled breast,<br/ > The voice so like his own.<br/ >

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